Harmony

Movements working in harmony.

Muscles in the gym should sing

not scream.

Coaching Labels

What's in a label?

Assessment coach

Flexibility coach

Movement coach

Speed coach

Strength coach

Core coach

Performance coach

Power coach

Nutrition Coach

What is the common thread?

What are the fundamental principles for coaching sports and athletes?

Fundamental principles are generally accepted truths.

Listen to the expert coaches but always trust your own judgement.

Question the Coach

Do athletes learn a sport with a piece of equipment?

Do athletes increase performance with apparatus/fitness tools used in the weight room?

Do athletes decrease the chance of injury with an assessment grid?

Do athletes enhance endurance on a bike, treadmill?

Or do athletes learn, decrease risk of injury and optimize skill/ performance through play, continuous practice and great athletic coaching?

Physical Language And Your Sport {PLAYS}

The fundamental development process of coaching movement skills and sport skills, being aware with the components in your sports environment and the tools.

Sport is an activity that is governed by a set of man made rules, customs and fundamental laws, often engaged in competitively. Object to establish and maintain a competitive positive safe environment that allows the athlete to maximize their growth. To that we recognize that all members of the athletic community are to be treated with respect.

Environment

On ground

In water

On snow

On ice

Standing

Sitting

In the air

Tools/Equipment

Balls

Sticks

Bat

Protective gear (knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, hand, head)

Gloves

Gun

Bow

Reel

Car's

Horses

Skates

Shoes/Spikes

Boot
ViPR

Sneakers

Boards

Bikes

Hurdles

Discus

Poll

Weights

Components

Gravity

Mass

Time

Space

Momentum

Position

Speed

Awareness

Spatial

Body

Directional

Natural skills learned 

Roll, Crawl, Balance, Pull, Push, Squat, Stand, Walk, Run, Jump, Skip, Jerk,Shuffle, Step, Hit, Check, Shoot, Pass, Skate, Ski, Swim, Surf, Slide,Paddle, Row, Cycle, Throw, Strike, Catch, Dive, Ride, Drive, Climb, Kick, Punch, Swing, Lift

Leadership

"Quality leadership means knowing when it's time to guide your athletes and when it's time to allow your athletes to guide you"

Coaching and Performance Indicators

Basic guidelines to achieve the goal.

Skill Sets

• Recognize the unique physiological demands of your sport(s)
• Recognize the individual athlete and position
• Understand the 24 hour rule
• Identify key growth and development markers during adolescence
• Develop a season long training program
• Understand the importance of pre and post game warm up's and cool down
• Identify the critical training factors related to injury prevention
• Provide a safe environment
• Minimize the chance of injury
• Optimize physical development
• Understand the fundamental concepts of your sport movement
• Apply training method
• How and when to replenish energy systems

Coaches sometimes tend to be one sided in terms of knowing sport skill and performance science.

We either excel at the technical and tactical demands but lack the basic understanding for sports science. The other side of the coin is the conditioning coach is so well versed in gym science they fail to understand the coaching demands for the athlete in their respective sport.

As we can see coaching demands a wide variety of skill sets, it also demands that coaches get out of the comfort zone and learn to converse with each other. It also demands trust and respect of each others craft, checking the ego, with the main focus to be on long term athletic development in sports and building relationships.

Water Breaks

Signs of dehydration

• Headaches
• Weakness
• Premature Fatigue
• Nausea
• Thirst
• Irritability
• Cramping
• Goose bumps

Some coaches still use water breaks as a way to punish or reward their athletes

The coach should have the basic education on the amount, time and type of fluid needed and lost during their respective sport.

Hydration should take place two hrs before competition or a workout. Fluid is lost primarily thought sweat and breathing.

The athlete should drink 20 to 24 ounces of fluid for each pound lost.

The coach should be educated and educate the athlete on these basic hydration guidelines.

Principles of coaching athletes' in team settings

#1 Environment- what type of environment are you creating to help the athlete focus on the task while increasing effective and efficient performance?

#2 Consequences- are you strengthening or weakening the athletes physical and mental ability to maintain a high rate of performance and self confidence with positive feed back and smart training, or are you guessing and making them afraid to make a mistake in the result of negative feed back and lost performance?

#3 Responds- do you think the athlete will respond to positive or negative consequences?

#4 Reinforce- are your actions physical punishment i.e. push ups, running, wall sits etc... or reinforcement? are the same athletes making the same mistakes? "no matter how many times I tell him, he keeps making the same mistake"... this is only known by the course of that action.

Human Motion

Coaches that have a strong understanding of human motion specific to their respective sport(s) have a better understanding on how to bring out favorable adaptations, improve short and long term performance and prevent injury. Coaches without a solid understanding of human motion need to find someone that does and add them to their coaching staff if he/she is unwilling  then his/her athlete's will remain unchallenged with the strong possibility for injury and decreased in performance. Kinesiology is the study of human motion with the purpose to provide the coaches with a professional understanding of  how an athletic body moves, when to apply the appropriate drills and exercises to improve performance and prevent injury. 

Technique

Which technique is correct? Obviously the hockey goalie on the right is out of position but still makes the save, is his technique incorrect should we correct it? If you observe 16 professional baseball players at bat you will see 16 different technique's. Professional athletes have the ability to over come stressors greater than the average person, the great ones let things happen, effortless, egoless, free of blocks {quite mind} free of fears, inhibitions, doubts and self-criticisms. They are focused on the "here and now" allowing for creativity...non-wishing, non-judging, making it look easy. What the casual observer or fan.at.ic does not see is the years of practice repeating skills perfectly as perfect can get over and over on and off the field day in day out. 

Everyone is not a winnner

Everyone should not get a trophy, losing can serve as a greater learning tool than winning we need to take risk to grow, be where we need to be, comfortable being uncomfortable. We all need to struggle, and in those struggles we need a focal point in the moment.

Great athletes know this, great coaches teach it and great teams win with it a blend of skill, intuitive awareness and athleticism that the players have one another's back, pick each other up when one is down, make a great play when one makes a bad mistake. There is no selfishness, self interest, you show up to compete putting the teams interest over your own. Sometimes you win and sometimes you fail miserably.

Athletic Coaching Communication

Mastering communication is a cinch, if the professional athletic coach has the ability to observe, ask, listen, assess and provide feedback with respect and concern.  A great quote to remember is "God gave you two ears and one mouth, so you can listen twice as much" the Athletic Coach can not be an absentee leader. Being involved with informal meetings and mingling with your athlete's, giving your athlete's the ability to speak their minds freely, discuss disagreements and make useful suggestions with an open door policy. Daily basic team warm-up drills can serve a duel purpose while your athlete's are moving, their minds are in the moment. Also a great resource is an assistant coach and team captain(s) someone you can trust, are good listeners, care deeply about the team and someone who wouldn't hesitate to voice any disagreements they have with you as a professional coach. 

Communication = giving and receiving a message 

Communication = availability this is best done in person eye to eye. 

The disadvantages of learning

As coaches we are teachers as  teachers we understand all the benefit's of learning. But what about the disadvantages? The first disadvantage of learning is learning takes time, you don't want to explore all the new possible ways of fire prevention if your house is burning down, or learn all the accumulated cultural wisdom about tigers when one is chasing you. Sometimes it's best we just go on relying on the old routines.  

An important step some athletic coaches miss.  

Professional Coaches that depend on the accumulated knowledge of past generations has to have some time to acquire that knowledge. And the coaches that depend on that imagination has to have some time to exercise it and keep asking the question why?

Win everyday

Good, better, best

Never, never rest

'til the good is better

and the better is best. 

-Matignon High School, Nun

3 years

3 years is the average life span of your youth athletic coach. The most overlooked are sometimes the most important. I always hear about the life span of the referees the umpire's and the athlete but not always the coach, parts to the whole. 

kids vs. parents bring back THE GAME

We had a great weekend in Washington DC presenting on the topic's of coaching parents and kids and why coaches need a well grounded philosophy. Again I shared my coaching philosophy and suggested that anyone is welcome to adopt my model and build on it. 

We were discussing how a small amount of adults ruin it for the kids, when people ask me what I do... "I coach kids and rehabilitate parents" which is true a small amount of parents lack the basic education of the Athletic Development Model. We were tossing around ideas on how to educate the parents and how to get the parents involved in a way that is helpful not hurtful. 

Kids vs. Parents THE GAME

From the age of 6 to the age of 15 growing up in the burbs of Boston every thanksgiving our youth program would have a kids vs parents scrimmage or as the kids billed it THE GAME. Our season  consisted of 20 travel games and 20 practices, but the game always was one of our main focuses. The game was a 60 minute stop time with two refs one score keeper and two coaches for each bench. This was much more than just a game it was a challenge, a quest if you will for  kids to "get back" at our parents for all those times they made us come in from our intense long hours of outdoor sporting activities to eat family dinners and do homework. As well it was a time for the parents to get a sense of what it is like to play a youth game. Building up to the game as kids we rejected the notion of having our parents on the field with us, we laughed and had fun at our parents expense, and as the day approached and we were marching out to the field for battle, seeing our parents dressed up in uniform warming up to play something happened, a feeling of respect and a grin of happiness and joy that our parents were at our level. The games were full of pranks, laughs and a special bond followed up with great conversation over pizza's and Pepsi's. We never had unruly parents, every team that had THE GAME the coaches had zero problems with the parent. The kids played, the parents watched and the coaches well they coached.  

This week in the PAC

Headed to Washington DC to present at the local annual USA Hockey Coaching Clinic's, which is required that all bench coaches involved with USA Hockey maintain a certain level of certification. This is a great way to build relationships, learn from our mistakes, give back, set goals, encourage debate and discuss disagreements. From the clinic's I have attended and presented at my impression is that the coaches are there because it is required.

In creative positions like athletic coaching, when there is little to no choice it can cause people to become suspicious, defensive and resist from the very beginning. The other pearl I found was once the coach has met the requirement which is basically just showing up, they have a choice which is to decide how they want to spend their time at these clinic's.

Your choice, or is it?

"When I was a little boy, my parents told me what to do, and scolded me when I didn't. When I went to school my teachers told me what to do, and caned me if I didn't. When I joined the army, the sergeant told me what to do and God help me if I didn't, so I did! When I got my first job my boss told me what to do too. So when I reached a position of some authority, what did I do? I told people what to do, because that is what all my role models had done. That is true for most of us, we have been brought up on telling and we are very good at it."

Athlete's Education

Identify the learning process while educating your athlete's. 

1. Ego motivated athlete is more concerned with proving himself to others rather than improving himself or others. These athlete's are easily identified in the weight room with "how much can you lift" on the field with "over complected celebrations and trash talk. And they can be very difficult to coach because they tend to be preoccupied. 
2. Task/goal motivated athlete this athlete loves progressive tasks,  fiercely competitive, focus on achievement, feel successful when they gain skill and knowledge while thinking about how to get better at tasks. 
3. Team motivated athletes learns and performs best when they interact with groups of people, they don't enjoy working independently or focusing on topic's separately from the team.  
4. Learning motivated athletes enjoy practice and becomes aware of his or her skill set through continuous practice. They set out to seek knowledge and awareness of there skill, i.e. faster times, performance in the gym, wins and losses.... body awareness and team or sport awareness. The learning motivated athlete steers clear of anyone trying to pull them down or people that have a negative outlook on themselves and others. 

A State of Health Coaching Youth Sports

Early specialization = early drop out

Lack of confidence in playing skills = withdrawal from activity

Lack of physical education k-12

Kids under train and over compete

Long competitive youth seasons with increase risk in injury

Limited experienced and knowledgeable coaches

The best most experienced coaches teach the best athletes

Parents under educated in the athletic development process

Youth progress to the next level without acquiring the proper skills 

Coaching what is it?

Sport coach, bench coach, strength coach, conditioning coach, skills coach, rehab coach and so on... What is the principle behind coaching athletes, is it different with each coaching group? Are there general rules and concepts? I find a ton of information on the how to apply techniques, tactics, rehab, performance programs, sports specific with some general thoughts, cues and ideas but no real meat and potatoes. What does coaching athletics mean to you?